Francois Boucher The Setting of the Sun painting

Francois Boucher The Setting of the Sun paintingFrancois Boucher The Rest on the Flight into Egypt paintingFrancois Boucher Portrait of Marquise de Pompadour painting
Well, I would know in three days, and meanwhile I must buy her a really magnificent present. I finally bought her something which I was sure she would appreciate-a gracefully-shaped wine-vase in bronze, with serpent-head handles and a complicated design of gold and silver inlay. It was, in my opinion, of far finer workmanship than any of the Corinthian vessels that collectors give such absurd prices for nowadays. It came from China! In the centre of the design had been sunk a gold medallion of Augustus which had somehow strayed to that wonderfully distant land. That vase cost me five hundred gold pieces, though it stood no more than eighteen inches high.
But before I tell of my visit and my long interview with her I must clear up a point on which I may perhaps have misled you. From my accounts of the treason-trials and similar atrocities it will probably be deduced that the Empire under Tiberius was intolerably misgoverned in all departments. This